1939 Packard Super Eight Touring Sedan

Packard Super Eight Touring Sedan

A concours example with over 200k spent on its restoration. You have to see this car to appreciate how good it is. The car needless to say, is in nut & bolt brand new condition. This Packard has covered less then 1000 miles since restoration & really ought to be run in gently over the next 500 miles. The car was restored by Marque specialists AL Pruett & sons of Glen Rock, PA.

The engine bay is beautifully detailed & like new. The motor puts out some 130hp & 225 Lbs Ft of Torque. It is spacious powerful & advanced for the year with 4 wheel hydraulic brakes. Indeed it is amazing to step out a derby Bentley or Rolls & into this as it make one realise just how far ahead of the game Packard were at that time. This was the first year of production for the "Three on the tree" Column gear change.

A detailed appraisal report is available with the car along with a replacement valuation cost of £150,000 and a copious history file. The car is spacious in the extreme, fast, comfortable & well able to run in modern traffic conditions. Indeed the last one of these we sold in similar condition was driven straight to Switzerland without missing a beat.

A FACE IN THE CROWD

Love story

PUBLISHED In the USA in The New York Times in 1979 telling the story of the Packard and its owner.

A man, two women and a ’39 Packard

By JOYCE WADLER

Walter Werring had been a Packard man since ’23, had bought his second, a ’39, just after he was married. And as he didn’t abuse it, and Packard always made a good car, it just kept on running, and he and his wife took some fine trips, down through the smokies, along the Skyline Drive near Kentucky, down to Florida, where Walter will admit, he was feeling so good he just had to take it up to 96 miles an hour. The car was nearly 30 years old then and Walter nearly 70, and when he pulled into a gas station for gas the reaction was almost always the same “You drove this all the way from New York, mister?” “Oh sure” Walter always said. He’s not a collector. Cars are to drive, life’s to be lived; he was never one to collect for the sake of collecting or retire and then sit around

He used that car a lot; not just for short trips and taking along on cruise ships, but for running friends about: it was a time when friends were growing old, maybe having trouble getting about, and the Packard was a good car, big enough for a wheel chair, big enough for a lot of trunks. He was always running out to the airport with it, or through the neighbourhood, and somehow the car seemed to get younger as everybody got older. It was always a draw, and it got so Walter could give the whole history in the space of a red light.

“1939 Packard,” he’d begin, “Super 8, Model 1703.”

Then, 10 years ago, his wife dies, and Walter’s life changes. He still runs people on errands with the Packard, tries to amuse himself, but there is emptiness. Then there is a day one especially rough day, when the maid comes, and he gives her his wife’s cloths-delicate clothes for Alberta was small. And he drives the maid back to Brooklyn, and drives himself back home and parks in front of his apartment house, too tired to drive round the corner to the garage. It’s a grey day and it’s raining and Walter suddenly realizes something. “I’ve hardly spoken to anyone except waiters,” he thinks, “for a month.”

Across the street, then he sees someone he knows. The tall and lively Irene Ware, from downstairs, recently widowed. Her hair is Ash blond, her dress lovely. Her mood is probably not its best, for she has just come out of “Love Storey,” shaken and distraught, but how is Walter to know? He recalls a pleasant conversation they once had in the lobby, rolls down his window. “Mrs Ware, “he says, “won’t you come in out of the rain?”

Why make a love storey long, when it happened in the flash of a hummingbird’s wings? that very night she invited him to her place for cocktails, and the next day he took her to the Plaza, and that night drove her out to Kennedy Airport and, under the stars, proposed.

Three weeks later they were married and went on a honeymoon. That was the only time they left the Packard behind. Since – and it has now been nine years-they go with it all over, to the Berkshires, to Connecticut. The car is 41 years old now; Walter is 81. Irene-well we will keep that a secret, let us say only that you would never guess her age. They winter, the Werrings, in Hawaii, they summer wherever they and the Packard go. Occasionally, moving down the highway, they pass a new car that’s broken down, and Irene blows them a kiss. And the people, beside their car, stare at the Packard, cannot believe that old car cruising so smoothly, isn’t off to a show somewhere. But that, you know, was never Walters style; life’s to be lived and a car’s to be driven and moving through life you go.

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Super Eight Touring Sedan

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Vehicle details

Additional Information / Service History

1939 Packard Super Eight Touring Sedan

Chassis number: 1 272-2339

Registration number: 125XUP

A concours example with over 200k spent on its restoration. You have to see this car to appreciate how good it is. The car needless to say, is in nut & bolt brand new condition. This Packard has covered less then 1000 miles since restoration & really ought to be run in gently over the next 500 miles. The car was restored by Marque specialists AL Pruett & sons of Glen Rock, PA.

The engine bay is beautifully detailed & like new. The motor puts out some 130hp & 225 Lbs Ft of Torque. It is spacious powerful & advanced for the year with 4 wheel hydraulic brakes. Indeed it is amazing to step out a derby Bentley or Rolls & into this as it make one realise just how far ahead of the game Packard were at that time. This was the first year of production for the "Three on the tree" Column gear change.

A detailed appraisal report is available with the car along with a replacement valuation cost of £150,000 and a copious history file. The car is spacious in the extreme, fast, comfortable & well able to run in modern traffic conditions. Indeed the last one of these we sold in similar condition was driven straight to Switzerland without missing a beat.

A FACE IN THE CROWD

Love story

PUBLISHED In the USA in The New York Times in 1979 telling the story of the Packard and its owner.

A man, two women and a ’39 Packard

By JOYCE WADLER

Walter Werring had been a Packard man since ’23, had bought his second, a ’39, just after he was married. And as he didn’t abuse it, and Packard always made a good car, it just kept on running, and he and his wife took some fine trips, down through the smokies, along the Skyline Drive near Kentucky, down to Florida, where Walter will admit, he was feeling so good he just had to take it up to 96 miles an hour. The car was nearly 30 years old then and Walter nearly 70, and when he pulled into a gas station for gas the reaction was almost always the same “You drove this all the way from New York, mister?” “Oh sure” Walter always said. He’s not a collector. Cars are to drive, life’s to be lived; he was never one to collect for the sake of collecting or retire and then sit around

He used that car a lot; not just for short trips and taking along on cruise ships, but for running friends about: it was a time when friends were growing old, maybe having trouble getting about, and the Packard was a good car, big enough for a wheel chair, big enough for a lot of trunks. He was always running out to the airport with it, or through the neighbourhood, and somehow the car seemed to get younger as everybody got older. It was always a draw, and it got so Walter could give the whole history in the space of a red light.

“1939 Packard,” he’d begin, “Super 8, Model 1703.”

Then, 10 years ago, his wife dies, and Walter’s life changes. He still runs people on errands with the Packard, tries to amuse himself, but there is emptiness. Then there is a day one especially rough day, when the maid comes, and he gives her his wife’s cloths-delicate clothes for Alberta was small. And he drives the maid back to Brooklyn, and drives himself back home and parks in front of his apartment house, too tired to drive round the corner to the garage. It’s a grey day and it’s raining and Walter suddenly realizes something. “I’ve hardly spoken to anyone except waiters,” he thinks, “for a month.”

Across the street, then he sees someone he knows. The tall and lively Irene Ware, from downstairs, recently widowed. Her hair is Ash blond, her dress lovely. Her mood is probably not its best, for she has just come out of “Love Storey,” shaken and distraught, but how is Walter to know? He recalls a pleasant conversation they once had in the lobby, rolls down his window. “Mrs Ware, “he says, “won’t you come in out of the rain?”

Why make a love storey long, when it happened in the flash of a hummingbird’s wings? that very night she invited him to her place for cocktails, and the next day he took her to the Plaza, and that night drove her out to Kennedy Airport and, under the stars, proposed.

Three weeks later they were married and went on a honeymoon. That was the only time they left the Packard behind. Since – and it has now been nine years-they go with it all over, to the Berkshires, to Connecticut. The car is 41 years old now; Walter is 81. Irene-well we will keep that a secret, let us say only that you would never guess her age. They winter, the Werrings, in Hawaii, they summer wherever they and the Packard go. Occasionally, moving down the highway, they pass a new car that’s broken down, and Irene blows them a kiss. And the people, beside their car, stare at the Packard, cannot believe that old car cruising so smoothly, isn’t off to a show somewhere. But that, you know, was never Walters style; life’s to be lived and a car’s to be driven and moving through life you go.